NOVEL FULL

Strange Stories

Chapter 83: Bean Soldiers Will Become

Chapter 83: Bean Soldiers Will Become (Thanks to the leader of the group "Efforts Not to Lazy QAQ") On a sunny day, the warm wind produces wheat air, and the green shade and quiet grass wins over flowers. However, at the foot of Mount Yishan, under the summer sun, a group of Taoists were working hard on their journey. Four strong Taoist priests in front were carrying a statue of a deity on two shoulder poles. The path was too narrow and they often stepped into the weeds. Behind them was a donkey with a bamboo basket on its back, each containing a cat statue. Behind them were five younger Taoist priests, each carrying a basket on their backs, also containing a cat statue. A group of cats and a fox followed them. The cat statue on his back was okay, not too heavy, but the four brothers in front were carrying human statues, which were too heavy. The statue was made in Yi County and transported all the way from the city. Only the first section of the journey could be carried by car, and the rest of the journey had to be carried by manpower. Even if it is a cat statue, it is not easy to carry it all the way here. "Ugh……" Practicing Taoism is one thing, but it is also a torturous job if you don’t refine your body or become an immortal.

Lin Jue actually agrees more with his third brother in this regard—— There is obviously a mountain village at the foot of the mountain, and we can just pay the villagers to help with the transportation. The Taoist temple is not short of money recently. In this way, the villagers can work hard but earn money, and the Taoists can also relax. It's absolutely the best of both worlds. But the eldest brother doesn't think so. "Thanks to you guys for your hard work." A cat walking in front took small, swift steps and occasionally trotted for a while. "If we were to move it ourselves, we would not be able to do it." "My fellow Taoist's abilities lie elsewhere." Lin Jue said, wiping his sweat. "You can talk." Ma Mao looked at him seriously, "Now you are my third favorite Taoist priest in the entire Fuqiu Temple." "Who's number one?" "It must be your master. He and I grew up together!" "So you are so old, fellow Taoist." "That's right! You should call me senior!" "What about number two?" "Hmm? What's the second?" "My second favorite person." "Oh!! There's a second one in the middle!" “…” Lin Jue was choked for a moment, feeling somewhat helpless, but he raised his hand and bowed, “Thank you very much for your kindness, fellow Daoist senior.” "What is deep love?" "..." At this moment, a voice came from the front: "It's coming!"

Lin Jue looked up and saw that they were almost there. A new temple appeared in the forest. Fortunately, the temple is built at the foot of the mountain and there is no need to climb. Several Taoists were exhausted and out of breath, but they did not rest and walked into the temple in one go. The temple had been repaired long ago and was in great shape. The plaques and couplets were written by Mr. Liu, a man of high moral character and high esteem in Yi County who was good at calligraphy. Now all that was missing were the statues. Several brothers placed the statue of the Fourth Aunt on the main seat, and Lin Jue and others placed the cat statues on their backs on both sides below. The one who became a deity was the Fourth Aunt, but as the saying goes, if one person succeeds, the whole family will benefit. Since the Fourth Aunt became a deity, she naturally brought all her descendants into the temple to worship incense. Adjust the position and put it in a better position. The cats watched them move. Lin Jue finally breathed a sigh of relief and walked out of the temple. "Congratulations to Fourth Aunt and fellow Taoist cats. You have finally achieved the right result." The eldest senior brother said behind him, "You will practice in the mountains and receive incense and worship from the people below. Fourth Aunt has many children and is blessed with many blessings. If someone comes to ask for help, she can just send a few of her descendants to deal with it. There are several mountain villages nearby and far away. The incense and worship are enough to maintain her position and body." "Of course we know this!" "If it is managed properly, perhaps its reputation will spread to even further places. Then people from Yi County and even the surrounding areas will come to pray. Perhaps more temples will be built, and the incense will spread more and more widely." “We know this too!” Lin Jue heard the sound and looked up into the distance. A village can be seen faintly in the distance. Although Yishan is remote, there are mountain villages at the foot of the mountain. The nearest one is Gang Village, and there are several villages named "Keng" in the distance. There are many people in each village, and there is a temple fair every year. Through this fourth aunt, he had a rough idea of ​​the system of gods in this world. The fourth aunt became the smallest god, which means she only has a legal identity, a name in heaven, and a record in the court on earth, and can legally collect incense. As for the duties and responsibilities of the gods, it is entirely determined by her own management and believers, and the power of the gods also depends on her own accumulation. This kind of little god has a hard time. Work hard and be cautious. If you don't do your job well, like Mr. Liu in the city, a highly respected person, who takes advantage of the situation and comes to demolish your temple, you will be helpless. There is no way, monsters also have a limited lifespan. The fourth aunt was actually nearing the end of her life, so she had to seek the way to become a god. After becoming a god, as long as the incense continued to burn, she would be immortal. Once the incense stopped, she would gradually disappear. Looking back at history, not too far back, just a few hundred years ago, there were many gods that no one worships anymore and have no names in the world. Most of these gods no longer exist. Therefore, this is a solution, but also a shackle. If Lin Jue had followed the path of the talisman sect, even if he had achieved success in his practice and completed his merits, and was included in the ranks of immortals after his death, it would probably have been like this. "In order to make the incense of Fourth Aunt more popular, we have to notify the villagers at the foot of the mountain and tell them that their temple has been built. They can come to ask Fourth Aunt for help in catching rats and exorcising ghosts and evil spirits. If Fellow Daoist Ma San has nothing to do, we will leave first." The eldest brother's voice continued to come from behind.

When Lin Jue turned around, a group of cats had already jumped onto the altar, each looking at their own statue. These cat statues are very simple and not very realistic, but the statues are all painted with oil paint, so you can roughly tell whether it is you by the color. Of course, there are also some that are wrong - two cats are looking at the same statue at the same time, with serious faces, as if they didn't notice anything wrong, and perhaps they even think that the statue corresponds to their two cats. "We are fine now. We are just very sorry for the hard work and trouble you fellow Taoists. We will certainly come to your house in person to express our gratitude later." Ma Mao said very politely. "That's not necessary." said the third brother. "I know." Ma Mao glanced at him, "I won't bring mice to you." "Then we're leaving." "Walk slowly." Among the cat demons, Ma Mao was the most polite. He jumped down from the altar and saw them off with his tail raised. Take a walk through the village at the foot of the mountain, soak in a hot spring to relieve your fatigue, and then return to the Taoist temple in the refreshing evening breeze. Lin Jue took out a wooden sculpture. The wood carving is less than palm-high and is in the shape of a warrior wearing armor and carrying a long sword. Apart from the face, there are no facial features. The details are very precise and the body is painted with oil paint. The most important thing is that the wood carvings already have spiritual charm. The third brother took the wood carving, examined it for a moment, and nodded repeatedly: "Not bad, not bad. I just said the other day that some details were different from the real person, so today they were all corrected. Good, good, now that you have come down the mountain and meet the girl you love, you can carve one in her image, and you will definitely win her heart." "Third Brother, let's talk business." Lin Jue had already gotten used to it and his expression was calm. "How is this not business?" "How about this statue?" "Ugh……" The third brother sighed and shook his head, then said: "That's it. "At this point, you have mastered the 'carving' step and can start refining it directly. "The ritual is a time-consuming job, and it has to be done every day. As time goes by, after the ritual, the statue will shrink a little bit, and the bean soldier will grow a little bit bigger, until it can become a bean soldier as tall as a human. At that time, the statue will just turn into a round bean. "You must be attentive when you are practicing, as this determines the strength of the bean soldiers. The higher your level of cultivation, the deeper your attainments, and the longer you practice, the stronger the bean soldiers will be. If you can become a great power, the bean soldiers will be able to fight against the heavenly soldiers. "As for how to change this wooden helmet armor into iron armor, and how to change the wooden sword into a steel sword, I will teach you slowly later." Then he taught Lin Jue the method of sacrifice and refining. Lin Jue also learned it from the book. So every day when he returned to the house, or during his breaks from practicing in the mountains, he would offer sacrifices to this wood sculpture when he had free time.

Carving beans into soldiers is a wood and metal magic, and now Lin Jue has only learned the wood element. Previously, he had taken the wood element spirit from the earth and wood essence, as well as the peach gum given by the peach demon, and he also had some understanding of the wood spirit. Sure enough, every day of the ritual, the statue became smaller and rounder. After a month, it had become a bean. When he was summoned out at this time, he had become a strong and powerful soldier. The only difference is that the armor is made of wood, and the long sword is also made of wood. The soldier also cannot move. Lin Jue took it to find his third senior brother again. "Oh! You've refined it so quickly?" The third brother was a little surprised, but he continued to tell him happily, "If you want the bean soldiers to move and have intelligence, knowing what to do and what not to do, you need to invite a residual soul to go in and serve as your bean soldier." "Where can I find it?" Lin Jue had long known that Doubing needed residual souls, and he also knew the general methods and precautions, but he still needed to ask him for advice. “Don’t worry. "First of all, if you want the bean soldiers to be able to fight, in addition to training them to make them stronger, you also need skills, so naturally you have to find the remaining soul of a warrior. "But you also need to know the key reason why our 'carving beans into soldiers' is not classified as a sorcery." Lin Jue had naturally heard it once. However, there is nothing wrong with listening to the third brother's story again and from a different perspective. It may even be beneficial. After all, the third brother's major is Bean Soldier, and he has a lot of experience in this spell. He may not lose to the person who wrote down this spell in the ancient book. “These are the three points: "First, most bean soldiers only ask for the obsession of residual souls, not ghosts. This is because bean soldiers are small and cramped, and they lie still for a long time. Residual souls have no consciousness, so they can bear it, but ghosts can hardly bear it. “Secondly, the bean soldiers have no restraining effect on the residual soul, so I said ‘please’ instead of ‘restrict’. It can leave at any time. "Third, the caster has no restrictions on the bean soldiers. They can listen to you or not. "Now you know why I have such respect for my bean soldiers?" The third brother said to him with a smile. "understood." "You must know that the residual souls are not ghosts. Even if they are relatively intact because of obsession, they can hardly understand human words and can only feel emotions and personalities. Therefore, even if the residual souls are reluctant to leave the world, if you want to invite them into the bean soldiers, you have to interact with them with your heart." The third brother spoke of this extremely difficult matter very easily: "Thus, throughout the ages, those who practice carving beans into soldiers mostly have bean soldiers with the same temperament as themselves: if you are a murderer without justice, you have to find those violent and bloodthirsty residual souls; if you are a gentleman, you have to find those righteous and firm residual souls, so that you can match their minds and make them voluntarily follow you and become your bean soldiers." "What if he changed his gender in the middle?" Lin Jue asked. "There are examples like this. When they were young, they were full of righteousness and concerned about their country and the world, so they attracted the remnant souls who also died for their country to voluntarily follow them. When they got older and gained power, they changed and became the kind of people that their younger selves had to deal with. The remnant souls sensed this change and naturally left, and the bean soldiers they had trained for half their lives were no longer useful." “How wonderful…” Lin Jue sighed sincerely. "It's best for you to find the remaining soul of Dou Bing yourself. We will set off next month to attend the conference at Mingzhu Mountain. If we are lucky enough to meet him on the way, that would be great. But if we can't, it doesn't matter." The third brother said to him kindly: "I know a place called Hero Hill. Several decades ago, a famous man was framed by villains and sentenced to death. Many heroes in Jianghu heard about it and went to rob him for the sake of loyalty. After two hours of bloody battle, no one retreated and all died there. They were unwilling to die and turned into regrets, unwilling to leave, but had nowhere to go. If you have some chivalrous spirit, you can try to ask for help there." "understood." Lin Jue originally wanted to have a bean soldier before the fasting and offering sacrifices, so that he would have some confidence when encountering something. But it seems that this is unlikely.

But seeing this tall and mighty warrior unable to move, he felt really anxious. Thinking of Third Senior Brother’s Bean Soldiers, he became even more anxious. (End of this chapter)